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The effect of paying the labor of this country in silver coin of full
value, as compared with the irredeemable paper or as compared even with
silver of inferior value, will make itself felt in a single generation
to the extent of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, in
the aggregate savings which represent consolidated capital. It is the
instinct of man from the savage to the scholar--developed in childhood
and remaining with age--to value the metals which in all tongues are
called precious. Excessive paper money leads to extravagance, to waste,
and to want, as we painfully witness on all sides to-day. And in the
midst of the proof of its demoralizing and destructive effect, we hear
it proclaimed in the Halls of Congress that "the people demand
cheap money." I deny it. I declare such a phrase to be a total
misapprehension, a total misinterpretation of the popular wish. The
people do not demand cheap money. They demand an abundance of good
money, which is an entirely different thing. They do not want a single
gold standard that will exclude silver and benefit those already rich.
They do not want an inferior silver standard that will drive out gold
and not help those already poor. They want both metals, in full value,
in equal honor, in what-ever abundance the bountiful earth will yield
them to the searching eye of science and to the hard hand of labor.

The two metals have existed side by side in harmonious, honorable
companionship as money, ever since intelligent trade was known among
men. It is well-nigh forty centuries since "Abraham weighed to Ephron
the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth--four
hundred shekels of silver--current money with the merchant." Since that
time nations have risen and fallen, races have disappeared, dialects